Note 105a — Chapter VI · THE FIELD OF THE BATTLE OF TOWTON. [81a]

Anthony Widevile, or Wodevile, had summons to Parliament by the title of Lord Scales, in right of his wife, Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Lord Scales, of Nucells, widow of Henry Bourchier, and was afterwards Earl Rivers. He was brother of Elizabeth, Queen of Edward IV. He was not slain at Towton Field, although he seems to have taken a part in the battle. (See Fenn’s Collection of Original Letters, vol. i. p. 219, note 13.) He was the son and heir of Richard Widevile, or Wodevile, Earl Rivers, and Jaquette his wife, daughter of Peter Earl of St. Pol, and widow of John Duke of Bedford, third son of King Henry IV.; and he was, when Earl Rivers, beheaded at Pontefract, by order of the Council, during the Protectorate, and, as is believed, at the instigation of Richard Duke of Gloucester, on the 13th of June, 1483. Lord Richard Grey (son of the Queen Dowager Elizabeth, by her first husband, Sir John Grey of Groby), and Sir Thomas Vaughan, were executed there, at the same time. The Wodeviles were originally of the Lancastrian party; and Sir John Grey of Groby, the first husband of Elizabeth afterwards the Queen of Edward IV., lost his life fighting for that party, at the first battle of St. Alban’s, in 1455; but after Elizabeth’s charms had made a conquest of the heart of Edward, and he had married her, the Wodeviles became staunch Yorkists.